Adam and I spent last week (Monday - Friday) at the ABWE Western European conference(well, really, the Iberian Peninsula plus 1 MK from Italy) in Alaferia, Portugal. It was a long 8 hour drive from Madrid to our hotel. I'm just not good with car rides longer than 4 hours. Upon arriving, we checked in to the hotel, which was very nice. Our mission got a fantastic rate and the apartments were recently built and only 2 years old, so the rooms were nice, clean, and modern.
We arrived late Monday, hit up the Portuguese grocery store, Continente, grabbed some Pizza Hut pizza (Stuffed Crust!!!), played some Five Crowns, and then hit the sack. Each morning, beginning Tuesday, we would gather as a group (there was about 50 of us) and worship and then receive a bible study from Pastor Green, a friend of a Portugal missionary, Evandro. Mr. Green brought wonderful messages each day we were there. After our meetings in the mornings, we had the afternoon and evenings free. Adam and I would either go to the beach to read, swim in the indoor pool, or just relax. On Wednesday, we went to an open air market (a ferria for Spaniards) and I got a scarf for 5 euros. We also purchased a fried doughnut for a euro dipped in cinnamon and sugar - mmmmmm. Fattening but mmmmmm. On Thursday, after our meeting, we went to a Portguese restaurant and had an American/Portugues thanksgiving meal. We had a carrot/potatoe soup (Portuguese dish), bread, turkey with gravy, mashed potatoes (unfortunately they were instant. sadness.), and carrots (more sadness - I would have preferred cranberry sauce. My sister and I are the only loves of jellied cranberry sauce in our family. But man we can eat a full can when it's served.). We were hoping for a chocolate dessert of some kind but we had fruit cocktail. Europeans love their fruit for dessert. They have sweets here but not near the intensity of American desserts. But it was a great meal and I got turkey!
Adam and I also got to do some runs of the beach. Well...run to the beach, jog on the short shoreline, and jog back to the room. Beach runs in Portugal are primarily rocky. Beaches are below steep cliffs and not so many shells line the beaches like the East Coast. But still very beautiful. Regardless of what type of beach you are on, an ocean sunrise or sunset is magnificant.
I was glad we are "away" for Thanksgiving. It was a good distraction for spending our first Thanksgiving away from our families. Still, it was very hard. I realized that all my life I have always been around my family for every holiday, and my family loves holidays. We celebrate every birthday (from uncle to cousin to niece/nephew) and Mom always has a present of some sort on the major holidays. So, for me to be away from family on a major holiday, presents an emptiness I'm not used to.
But despite my distance from my family, I was very thankful for all the blessings the Lord has given me this year. First, I was very thankful for our little family - Adam, me, and Carson. Until we have kids, maybe, one day, Carson is my little baby. And even though he pees on our new rug every day and we want to beat him, I still love him. I know kid love will be different but doggy love right now is good. Second, I'm thankful for this opportunity to serve the Lord in Spain. I have to keep that as my focus. Third, Í'm thankful for all the blessings we have (house, food, clothing, etc.). We are so blessed. Last, but not least, so thankful for all those that pray and support us while we are here in Spain. You are the fuel behind us being here and enable us to minister every day. Thank you So very much!
Monday, November 28, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
Chick-fil-a
When living in a different country, you do grow a certain appreciation for "American" things. One in particular is the food. Restaurants like Panera Bread, Jason's Deli, and especially Chick-fil-a are non-existent, so in the midst of your cravings, you search for comparable alternatives. And in steps Pinterest... The wonderful Miss Carlson at ECA introduced me to this unbelievable website. You pin different things to online "bulletin boards" from Pinterest members. And thanks to Pinterest I was able to locate a recipe of how to recreate Chick-fil-a nuggets. And man, they were good :) We had friends over and made the nuggets and homemade fries. It was a great evening!
I'm really liking Pinterest. I found another recipe to make Caramel Apple Cheesecake bars and tried them out on Thursday. They were really good too - but what you can you do wrong when you are mixing sugar, butter, and cream cheese :)
And here's the recipe for the chicken nuggets:
2 boneless chicken breasts
1 cup milk
1 egg
1 1/4 c. Flour
2 Tbsp powdered sugar
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
Oil (peanut is recommended but you can use canola)
Mix milk and egg and whisk together. Chop chicken into bite size pieces. Put in milk/egg mixture. Put in refrigerator and marinate for 2-4 hours. Prepare dry mixture of flour, powdered sugar, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Coat each chicken piece with the mixture completely. Place 6-8 nugget at a time into 2 inches of oil on medium-high heat and cook until golden brown on each side.
Enjoy!
I'm really liking Pinterest. I found another recipe to make Caramel Apple Cheesecake bars and tried them out on Thursday. They were really good too - but what you can you do wrong when you are mixing sugar, butter, and cream cheese :)
And here's the recipe for the chicken nuggets:
2 boneless chicken breasts
1 cup milk
1 egg
1 1/4 c. Flour
2 Tbsp powdered sugar
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
Oil (peanut is recommended but you can use canola)
Mix milk and egg and whisk together. Chop chicken into bite size pieces. Put in milk/egg mixture. Put in refrigerator and marinate for 2-4 hours. Prepare dry mixture of flour, powdered sugar, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Coat each chicken piece with the mixture completely. Place 6-8 nugget at a time into 2 inches of oil on medium-high heat and cook until golden brown on each side.
Enjoy!
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Turkey Bowl & Spanish Ghost Towns
This week had its highs and lows. As it inches closer to Thanksgiving, I get more saddened of the thought that my Mamaw Pressley's macaroni & cheese, mashed potatoes, smoked turkey, and cranberry sauce (without the berries of course) will have a portion less for me and Adam. I know it's just a silly tradition but one that I've known for 26 years.
But this week also had its highs. I had kabobs (a gyro like sandwich), played Dutch Blitz, and got to play two-hand touch football against the High School PE class yesterday as a part of the "Turkey Bowl". Also, it is possible that I may be summoned to teach another class at ECA - Accounting :) :). I will not hide my excitement in potentially teaching this. Although the students made me sad, when signing up for 2nd semester classes, a lot said, "What is accounting? Oh...I'd never take that class" They have no idea....my nerdy little personality blossomed in 10th grade when I took "Computerized Accounting" with Miss Boyer. We learned the basics about accounting (balance sheets, assets, liabilities, etc.) and I knew that was what I wanted to spend my life doing. So somehow the Lord has allowed me to come full circle - back to the classroom - to offer students the ability to decide if accounting is their passion. Maybe not. But just the possibility makes me smile.
Also last night, I realized how risk-adverse a person I really am. Encouraged by another teacher at ECA (Mr. H) we went last night to see a Spanish ghost town. Now, maybe my days of Tweetsie Railroad and the ghost town sets there had alter my view of ghost towns. Or movies I've watched where there is a main street and main town buildings line the sides, but this was something completely more scary.
We drove about 30 minutes away to a place called Villaflores near Guadalajara. I immediately wanted to stay in the car when we drove to the "road" that led to this place and there was chain linked fence blocking people from entering and a sign (in Spanish of course) that read "Watch for Falling Objects - Do Not Enter". I've never crossed a fence with a sign like that before. Obviously they wouldn't have written the sign if that fact wasn't true and they didn't want people up there. So that was time #1 when I was like, "Well, we should turn back". But no - Mr. H and Adam (and the manly adventure spirit) desired to go further. "We have to see it" - they said. "Think of the stories we'll have". None of these statements encouraged me to go further, but I was for sure not sitting in the car beside a spooky house, so onward I went.
Climbing up the hill, we arrive at the beginning of the town and a giant town hall/marketplace. Now keep in mind, this place has been abandoned for over 30-50 years. Everything is boarded up, slightly decayed, and it's at night. Nighttime. I don't go to scary places at nighttime. So we proceed to go inside every one of these abandoned buildings of Villaflores. I had never been so freaked out - knowing we were go to come face to face to a person who chose to sleep here or animals or other things. The only slightly comforting thing was that it was graffitied intensely. This was not comforting however, because what if others were up here continuing their art when we were there...sigh. But I continued partly out of not wanting to wait anywhere by myself and partly because I had no choice.
We toured the whole ghost town - town hall (which had two areas for cattle/livestock, a courtyard, and was humongous), a church (which still had the marble floor in it), houses (one main house and 5 other duplex homes), a giant silo type building that was the weirdest thing I've ever seen (it was stone and brick with a huge dome on the top that looked like a planetarium) - there are no silos that fancy back on farms in NC, a barn that contained tons of 500 lb. clay pots (this was creepy too - It was like a basement that housed these jugs - we had no idea what that was), and finally a barn. All the while wondering what this place was originally built for and why was it now abandoned.
We spent an hour and a half (the longest hour and a half of my life) touring this place in the dark. And thankfully we did not see any other individuals and only one creepy graffiti of a giant head with glow in the dark eyes (I refused to look at it - it was indeed creepy).
The boys probably hated my being there. I was constantly saying "I don't know..." or "Be careful" "Can we go now?" But I am not a risky person. While it was an odd and interesting thing to see, I would have been fine looking at pictures on the internet.
So that was the way I ended my week here in Spain! Freaked out in a ghost town. What other adventures will I experience here?
But this week also had its highs. I had kabobs (a gyro like sandwich), played Dutch Blitz, and got to play two-hand touch football against the High School PE class yesterday as a part of the "Turkey Bowl". Also, it is possible that I may be summoned to teach another class at ECA - Accounting :) :). I will not hide my excitement in potentially teaching this. Although the students made me sad, when signing up for 2nd semester classes, a lot said, "What is accounting? Oh...I'd never take that class" They have no idea....my nerdy little personality blossomed in 10th grade when I took "Computerized Accounting" with Miss Boyer. We learned the basics about accounting (balance sheets, assets, liabilities, etc.) and I knew that was what I wanted to spend my life doing. So somehow the Lord has allowed me to come full circle - back to the classroom - to offer students the ability to decide if accounting is their passion. Maybe not. But just the possibility makes me smile.
Also last night, I realized how risk-adverse a person I really am. Encouraged by another teacher at ECA (Mr. H) we went last night to see a Spanish ghost town. Now, maybe my days of Tweetsie Railroad and the ghost town sets there had alter my view of ghost towns. Or movies I've watched where there is a main street and main town buildings line the sides, but this was something completely more scary.
We drove about 30 minutes away to a place called Villaflores near Guadalajara. I immediately wanted to stay in the car when we drove to the "road" that led to this place and there was chain linked fence blocking people from entering and a sign (in Spanish of course) that read "Watch for Falling Objects - Do Not Enter". I've never crossed a fence with a sign like that before. Obviously they wouldn't have written the sign if that fact wasn't true and they didn't want people up there. So that was time #1 when I was like, "Well, we should turn back". But no - Mr. H and Adam (and the manly adventure spirit) desired to go further. "We have to see it" - they said. "Think of the stories we'll have". None of these statements encouraged me to go further, but I was for sure not sitting in the car beside a spooky house, so onward I went.
Climbing up the hill, we arrive at the beginning of the town and a giant town hall/marketplace. Now keep in mind, this place has been abandoned for over 30-50 years. Everything is boarded up, slightly decayed, and it's at night. Nighttime. I don't go to scary places at nighttime. So we proceed to go inside every one of these abandoned buildings of Villaflores. I had never been so freaked out - knowing we were go to come face to face to a person who chose to sleep here or animals or other things. The only slightly comforting thing was that it was graffitied intensely. This was not comforting however, because what if others were up here continuing their art when we were there...sigh. But I continued partly out of not wanting to wait anywhere by myself and partly because I had no choice.
We toured the whole ghost town - town hall (which had two areas for cattle/livestock, a courtyard, and was humongous), a church (which still had the marble floor in it), houses (one main house and 5 other duplex homes), a giant silo type building that was the weirdest thing I've ever seen (it was stone and brick with a huge dome on the top that looked like a planetarium) - there are no silos that fancy back on farms in NC, a barn that contained tons of 500 lb. clay pots (this was creepy too - It was like a basement that housed these jugs - we had no idea what that was), and finally a barn. All the while wondering what this place was originally built for and why was it now abandoned.
We spent an hour and a half (the longest hour and a half of my life) touring this place in the dark. And thankfully we did not see any other individuals and only one creepy graffiti of a giant head with glow in the dark eyes (I refused to look at it - it was indeed creepy).
The boys probably hated my being there. I was constantly saying "I don't know..." or "Be careful" "Can we go now?" But I am not a risky person. While it was an odd and interesting thing to see, I would have been fine looking at pictures on the internet.
So that was the way I ended my week here in Spain! Freaked out in a ghost town. What other adventures will I experience here?
Saturday, November 5, 2011
The Rain in Spain
This week we have had rain every day. There is one thing about the "Rain in Spain" that you should know, however. Rain in Spain is more equal to an NC misty rain or light rain; however, Spaniards react to it about the equivalency of how North Carolinians react to snow/flurries. Driving on the autopistas slows down significantly and everyone is very cautious.
The rain has caused the temperature to be much cooler and families haven't been as out and about this week as they have in the past. I wasn't able to run but once this week and not with my Monday running partner, Sarah D. :) Adam and I are gearing up for a 10k here in Spain that is very famous. The race is the San Sillvestre in Madrid. This race takes place on New Year's Eve in evening and the course takes you by famous spots in Madrid. Approximately 30,000 - 40,000 people run the race (so good thing I've run the Cooper Bridge Run right?) but there are also several thousands that "tag along" and run among the racers. We are excited about being able to do our first race oversees.
I often overlook with our busy schedule the beauty of Spain. The route Adam and I normally run near our piso is on an old highway and runs toward Camarma, the next town over where the school is. When we run that, I often try to distract myself with the surroundings. In our "backyard", there are plateau mountains (on top of one plateau there is actually a town - Adam really wants to hike up there one day) that make a beautiful backdrop. Now, don't get me wrong - I'm from the country back in NC and the Appalachian Mountains are gorgeous as well as the Smoky Mountains, but there is something beautiful about Spain's plateau mountains where we are.
So, even though we have had rain most every day this week, we did have a big bright spot in it. A Spanish family in our building invited us over for dinner. This is very big for Spaniards, as they only invite over guests that they are very familiar with. We will be having dinner with them next Saturday evening. Pray for us as we prepare to, even in our choppy Spanish, try to be a face of the Gospel with them. With Spaniards, it usually takes many conversations about the weather, neighborhood, politics, etc. to get to spiritual topics. We just thank the Lord for this opportunity and pray we can use it to his glory.
Well - off to fold laundry! Happy Saturday! :)
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